2,500 social homes to be delivered in Kildare over next three years

ALMOST 2,500 new social homes are to be delivered in Co Kildare over the next three years.

This is the highest figure for any county outside of Dublin. Kildare has a target of 2,426 new social houses falling behind just Dublin city, Dublin south and Fingal.

In 2017 the number of social houses delivered in the county was half of this. The numbers don’t include new builds under Part V, voids, acquisitions or long term leases so the actual stock of new social housing coming on stream will be greater than this.

“Kildare will benefit from the significant progress made to date in advancing the construction pipeline, as well as social housing delivery targets for local authorities for 2018-2021,” said Fine Gael TD Martin Heydon.

The figures for each county are included in the Q4 2017 Construction Status report published on Thursday by the Department of Housing.

“In 2017 we saw 1,190 social housing solutions delivered here in Kildare. This includes 762 delivered through the Housing Assistance Payment and Rental Accommodation Schemes and 428 houses built, acquired and leased by the local authority.

“One of the key outcomes of the second Housing Summit with local authority chief executives held earlier this year was a commitment to drive greater transparency and accountability at individual local authority level on the delivery of the targets under Rebuilding Ireland,” he said.

“In the latter part of 2017, Minister Murphy secured significant additional funding to increase the overall level of ambition under Rebuilding Ireland in the period to 2021, and also signalled a rebalancing of the strands of delivery towards construction projects.”

Over the next three years the aim is for 374 new builds, acquistions and leases, 728 homes under the HAP and RAS schemes and 1,102 through social housing delivery streams.

“Overall, the Government has now committed €6 billion to support the accelerated delivery of 50,000 additional social housing homes by end 2021, through build (33,500), acquisition (6,500) and leasing (10,000) programmes,” added Deputy Heydon.

“I will continue to push Kildare County Council, approved housing bodies, and local elected representatives to ensure the building of new social housing homes is a priority and these targets are reached. ”

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said a minimum of 40,700 homes will be delivered during the four year period to end-2021, including over 7,800 this year alone.

“Taking account of the progress already made in 2016 and 2017, this will ensure that the 50,000 target will be met, signalling this Government’s unwavering commitment to a significantly expanded social housing programme,” he said.